Part 16

The child's face was illuminated with a strange and holy rapture. She kissed the lemon bough which she held in her hand, and then laid it gently down upon the grass and clay under the wall.

'I have remembered, dear,' she said softly, and knelt on the ground and joined her hands in prayer. Then the weakness of her body overcame the strength of her spirit; she leaned forward lower and lower until her face was bowed over the yellow grass. 'I came to lie with you,' she said under her breath; and then her lips parted more widely with a choking sigh, the blood gushed from her mouth, and in a few minutes she was dead.

They laid her there in the clay and the sand and the tussocks of grass, and her father went back alone to his native place and empty room.

* * * * *

One day on the river-bank a man said to him:

'It is odd, but that lemon-tree which you sold to my master never did well; it died within the week--a fine, strong, fresh young tree. Were there worms at its root, think you, or did the change to the open air kill it?'

Fringuello, who had always had a scared, wild, dazed look on his face since he returned from the sea-coast, looked at the speaker stupidly, not with any wonder, but like one who hears what he has long known but only imperfectly understands.

'It knew Lizina was dead,' he said simply; and then thrust his spade into the sand and dug.

He would never smile nor sing any more, nor any more know any joys of life; but he still worked on from that habit which is the tyrant and saviour of the poor.

THE END

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected, sometimes by referencing other editions of these stories.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.